§ Mr. SpringTo ask the Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport whether the Government are establishing regional archivist groups; what movement of archives there will be to such groups from county and national archives; and what representations she has received on the matter. [45925]
§ Dr. Howells[holding answer 26 March 2002]:With encouragement from this Department, the National Council on Archives has set up a network of Regional Archive Councils which were formally established in 1999. They co-ordinate the development of archives policy and promote archives within the regions. As they are councils rather than repositories there are no plans to move archives from county and national archives to these groups. The Regional Archive Councils published archives strategies for each region in 2001.
317WMy Department has received the National Council on Archives report "Archives in the Regions", an overview of the English regional archive strategies, and is in discussion with Resource, the Council for museums, archives and libraries and other interested groups on how to take the recommendations of the report forward.